THE NE.W YORKER afternoon. And Sasha, forced to aban- don English, was nodding his big head confusedly and saying, "Da. Da. Da." AUGUST 28 E ARLY this morning, we met our friends Zhenya and Svetlana near the Sandunovsky Baths. I had begged to visit these baths, drawn by tales of theIr pre- Revolutionary luxury Zhenya and Svetlana seemed amused and hored by the request; they are a well-to-do young husband and wife, and they made it clear that they could wash at home. I'd seen this attitude before. Amencans are thrilled by Russian steam baths, which we regard as a luxury; for many members of the Rus- sian intelligentsia, however, the banya is a reminder of a peasant heritage they'd rather forget. We turned a corner and got a whiff of herbal steam. Along a short street, a row of old men sat selling small green bunches of birch and oak twigs piled up on crates. The baths were low buildings with the yellow plaster walls that give an odd tropical air to so many nineteenth-century Moscow neIghborhoods. Lines were already forming in the street-men and wom- en with sober expressions, all clutchIng loofahs and towels. In Russian style, we established our place in line by waiting there for five minutes; then we left to meet Y ura and V olodya, two student fnends, outside a beer store. We bought beer and retired to a vacant lot nearby, where we sat on crates and drank. All around us in the cool early morning, little groups were doing the same thing: everyone was waiting for a turn in the baths. There was a long line at the beer store now, and a scuf- fle broke out when one man tried to cut in front of another. An alcoholic woman came up and begged us tear- fully for vodka; when we offered her beer, she tightened her scarf around her red face and set off grimly down the street. Zhenya, Y ura, and V olodya were eating breakfast: black bread, and raw eggs sucked through a hole in the shell. A heavy, back-slapping kind of affec- tion existed among these three young men, who had grown up together in a small industrial town outside Mos- cow. They kidded each other and used old nicknames. "We have been rivals all our lives," saId Zhenya, leaning over to pat V olo- dya on the shoulder. V olodya, a burly young medical student with dark hair and a vulpine jaw, looked at him and gnnned "Rivals for women?" I asked. . f " f [, X: } I ' I .p \,\ Y..... A'. - - They burst out laughing. "Women, yes, yes! " Three drunks had installed them- sel ves on crates in the bushes behind us. They were eating salt fish and teas- ing a black terrier who stood snapping up morsels. One man leaned over and thrust a purplish face agaInst the m uz- zle of the dog. The dog snarled at him, and he snarled back, affectionately. "Oh, dog, dog'" he said. "Oh, my dear friend ! You'd like to bite me, wouldn't you? You'd like to eat me! You'd like to gobble me up like a sandwich! " I left for the women's bath with Svetlana. When we paid our rubles and stepped into the dressing room, I was stunned. I had expected remnants of opu- lence but nothing like this- an upholstered turn-of-the- century interior, with soft colors, curv- ing wood, and lace-shaded lamps. (Per- haps the lamps made the dIfference. Modern Soviet elegance does not in- clude any subtlety in lighting; most res- taurants in Moscow are lit by a fierce overhead glare.) Rows of mahogany benches upholstered in white filled the room; oval mirrors were set at intervals above the seats. A flowered carpet cov- ered the floor, and friezes of plaster cupids lined the pink walls. I was struck, as I had been before, by the lavish dec- oration of public buildings in the Soviet Union-theatres, churches, Metro sta- tions. Much of this public decoration dates from before the Revolution, some is post-Revolutionary, but all of it con- trasts wildly with the bleakness of the homes I have seen. The dressing room was full of naked women. For a second, the com- bination of bare flesh G!,nd lamplight gave me the jumpy feeling that this was a vicious place-a seraglio or a Victorian brothel.. Then my vision cleared; I saw here a peculiar whole- someness that is characteristically R us- sian. On closer inspection, the room had a homely shabbiness, the feeling of human use that is typical of any Soviet apartment or office. The car- pet was neatly darned at worn spots; the plaster cupids were chipped; the babushka in charge sat knitting com- fortably behind a table where a large gray cat slept. The nude women here were the women I had seen carry- ing stnng bags on the Metro. Minus their flimsy flowered dresses and cheap shoes, they were as I might have imag- ined them: mainly stockv, often bulg- ing grotesquely, but so unpretentious and unself-conscious that they had a 75 powerful appeal. Many had magnifi- cent braids of hair. Old and young, they chatted, strolled idly around, put on makeup, drank beer. I tried, and failed, to imagine American women of all ages in such a setting. In the steam and scrubbing rooms, mountainously fat mothers lay on mar- ble slabs while their smal1 daughters scrubbed and massaged every inch of their flesh In the hottest part of the steam room, babushki sat clutching their withered breasts while beside them adolescent girls narcis- sistical1y searched their hips for bulges, slapping the skin to increase circulation. No birch slapping was allowed in the women's bath. When I asked Svetlana about it, she made a face and said that the women who used birch twigs were "hicks," not born Mus- covites, and very uncultured. Like other sophisticated Russians I've met, Zhenya and Svetlana have an outspo- ken contempt for krestyanye, or peas- ants. I made a face back at Svetlana. I like her. She is a small-boned, attrac- tive girl who has an urchin haircut and a tough grin. She has the mixture of demureness and teasing flirtatiousness I see in so many Russian girls, and the queer blend of romanticism and ruth- less practicality . Naked, her slight fig- ure shows a thickening at the waist: she is three months pregnant, and her grin softens when she talks about the baby. The two of us went from the steam room to the small pool, where we be- gan to splash and play. The water around us was full of women plaYIng tag, shrieking and ducking each other paddling awkwardly across the pooL The pool itself was elegant, tiled in a mosaic design of garlands. In a nIche at one end stood a gold statue of two cherubs, one attempting a half nelson on the other. With their bulging naked bodies and homemade knitted bathing caps, the splashing women looked a lit- tle incongruous in this setting of neo- classical elegance. There was a mag- ical feeling of freedom in the air: the unhindered freedom of women in a place from which men are excluded. I have felt this intoxicating sense of liberty in similar situations at home in America, but for Russian women the feeling must be even more intense It is fairly wel1 known, I suppose, that most Russian women with families have two Jobs: an official, often physically exhausting one, and the exceedingly difficult one of keeping a family -'1 -b